The Heuristic Function of Party Affiliation in Voter Mobilization Campaigns: Informational Short Cut or Source Cue?

41 Pages Posted: 4 Jan 2014

See all articles by Florian Foos

Florian Foos

London School of Economics & Political Science; University of Zurich

Eline A. de Rooij

University of Oxford

Date Written: November 21, 2013

Abstract

Party affiliation is the most important heuristic that helps individuals infer information about candidates campaigning in elections. Knowing a candidate’s party affiliation should therefore help individuals of all partisan persuasions to arrive at voting decisions, thereby increasing turnout. However, if a heuristic helps individuals to connect messages to sources that they like or dislike depending on their political predispositions, a candidate’s party affiliation could instead cue individuals to either accept or discount the message altogether. Using the methodological rigor of a randomized GOTV field experiment to address this important theoretical distinction between the heuristic functions of party affiliation, we vary whether a party’s GOTV call refers to the candidate’s party affiliation during a low-information election. Our results support the idea that individuals use party affiliation as a cue to decide whether to accept or reject a GOTV message, rather than as an informational shortcut to candidate’s ideology or policy positions.

Keywords: party affiliation, randomized field experiment, partisanship, mobilization, election campaigns, GOTV, information

Suggested Citation

Foos, Florian and de Rooij, Eline A., The Heuristic Function of Party Affiliation in Voter Mobilization Campaigns: Informational Short Cut or Source Cue? (November 21, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2374542 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2374542

Florian Foos (Contact Author)

London School of Economics & Political Science ( email )

Houghton Street
London
United Kingdom

University of Zurich ( email )

Department of Political Science
Affolternstrasse 56
Zurich, 8050
Switzerland

HOME PAGE: http://www.ipz.uzh.ch/institut/mitarbeitende/staff/foos_en.html

Eline A. De Rooij

University of Oxford ( email )

Mansfield Road
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 4AU
United Kingdom

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